Ring Around the Rosie
by Lire
Summary: (I'm not sure the rating is that high, but just in case.) In the finale, Cecilia talks to Simon. It is perhaps their first rationale conversation. Ever.
1. We All Fall Down

"I want to learn what life if for/I don't want much, I just want more"  
  
The opening notes of Cecilia's voice lesson greeted her ears. It didn't matter, in the end. It wasn't like she had any choice to be here. Cecilia supposed she had one, once, but she didn't remember when it was. And she didn't remember what choice she made. She couldn't even tell whether it was the right choice or not. All she knew was that she was Cecilia, and that was that.  
  
"Ask what I want and I will sing/I want everything, everything."  
  
Contrary to popular belief, singing really didn't take up much of your mind. Cecilia would follow that train of thought more, but she knew she wouldn't like where it ended up, so she thought about her schedule for the rest of the week instead. Monday-Monday was today, with dance and voice. And she was at voice, so that was something she hadn't forgotten. Tuesday was dance, practice for voice, and improv class. Wednesday was dance, practice, homework, and a shift at the school. Thursday was the same, except there was a lunch meeting of the high school sorority to boot. Friday had dance, practice, a date with Simon and sleep. Saturday had a 5 mile run, work, homework, and audition scouting. And Sunday was more of the same, except instead of work there was church with Simon, messing up boys on the promenade, and a little more sleep.  
  
"I'd like to plan a city, play the cello/Play at Monte Carlo, play Othello"  
  
Simon. God, Simon. Cecilia wasn't sure what she wanted from him. It changed depending on who she was that day. Which was only as it should be. She knew she didn't love him. But she knew he didn't love her, not really, so she didn't feel the slightest bit guilty for how she treated him. It wasn't as if he cared. No one cared, that was the problem. But of course, she was perfect. She didn't need caring.  
  
"Move into the White House, paint it yellow. /Speak Portuguese and Dutch"  
  
Except no girls liked her. That's why she told Simon she needed a guy friend. She needed some friends. Perfect people had to have friends, or they wouldn't be perfect. Or at least that was what Cecilia had been told. All the girls at dance thought she was a snob. All the girls at school hated her because she was pretty-and because she had no qualms against breaking guys' hearts. After all, she was Cecilia. It was their own fault if they played with fire. The fire consumed Cecilia. There was no reason why it should hold off anyone else.  
  
"And if it's not too much I'd like to have the perfect twin/One who'd go out as I came in."  
  
Cecilia didn't have to worry about that one. She did have a perfect twin. Her cousin. Her absolutely perfect already actress cousin. Who'd achieved all her dreams. Before she knew they were her dreams. It wasn't fair. She was Cecilia. She shouldn't have a younger cousin who had done all that Cecilia had been told she'd ever wanted to do. And she was perfect. It was fair for anyone else to be perfect. And everyone wanted so much Too much  
  
"I've got to grab the big brass ring/so I'll have everything everything."  
  
There were her parents who wanted her to be her cousin-and Cecilia knew that they really wanted her to be their daughter. So she tried her best she sang and danced and acted and acted the diva. Which meant something, she had to suppose. Right? Her whole couldn't mean nothing, could it? With the ease of long practice Cecilia drove herself away from that train of thought. She didn't want to know what was at the end of that tunnel. And so she was a good girl. A good girl who dated a good boy. Hence, Virgin Camden. She was using him. He knew it. He was using her, to cover up for something, but she didn't want to know what. She knew that. So the entire relationship was a sham that was played out for both their families. But Cecilia didn't want that. She wanted love. And she knew she was never going to find it. She was never going to be perfect enough. Someone loved her cousin. Everyone loved her cousin. And she couldn't even make a nice guy from school like her. Life wasn't fair. Life should be fair. Maybe she could just fall down. Forget all the people who wouldn't love her-couldn't love her. Cecilia knew even as she was thinking that nothing she thought made sense. She didn't care. If it made sense than she would be afraid. But insanity was no strange territory to her. Cecilia shuddered, giving for one instant her entire voice into the song:  
  
"Give me the truth, if once I lied/Give me the man who's gonna bring more of everything."  
  
Lies. Everyone lied to her. And why should they tell her the truth? Not even her boyfriend loved her. So what if they were using each other? Wasn't she worth something, in and of herself. After all, she was Cecilia. Didn't that mean something? To someone? Somewhere? Cecilia felt herself crossing the thin boundary in her mind that kept her functioning and didn't care. All the sudden, the floor looked very inviting. And why shouldn't she? No one would care if she was gone. Not even Simon. Not even her parents. Not even Cecilia. There was nothing she was doing that a thousand other people could not do and do better. Simon might listen to everything she said, and agree to the most ridiculous terms, but he still didn't love her. And so why shouldn't she?  
  
"Then I'll have everything/I'll have everything everything."  
  
And then Cecilia let herself go. She fell, and knew no more.  
  
Author's Note: Yes, I'm aware that I'm basically making up Cecilia's entire character. I also don't own anything associated with 7th Heaven, including her. But Cecilia's a teenage girl, and so this can be accurate. The song "Everything" is from the move "A Star is Born". 


	2. Ashes, Ashes

"Cecilia? Cecilia? Are you all right?"  
  
That voice was intruding on her blessed darkness. Cecilia decided to ignore it.  
  
"Cecilia? Answer me or I'll call your parents!"  
  
That was a threat that could not be ignored. Cecilia opened her eyes.  
  
"Are you all right?" her voice teacher asked.  
  
"I'll be fine."  
  
"Is there anything I can get you?"  
  
"No, I'm okay."  
  
"Okay people don't just fall down on my rug in the middle of a lesson. I don't believe you. Do you want to sit down?"  
  
"No, let's just finish up the lesson."  
  
Her voice teacher stared at her for a few moments. "I don't think that's a good idea. In fact, if I thought you were okay to drive I'd send you home right now. Why don't you sit down and I'll get you something to drink," the woman stood up and helped Cecilia rise. "Make yourself comfortable. And you know I'm here to talk if you need it."  
  
Cecilia said nothing. In fact, as soon as the woman left the room, she stood up, grabbed her stuff, and left. It didn't matter if she was in a car accident. She doubted anyone would even notice. So why should Cecilia care?  
  
And she didn't. But it didn't matter in the end because she got home and went up to her room and locked the door and knew no more.  
  
Until the harsh buzzing of her alarm clock greeted her morning. She could think of no real reason to go to school, and yet she could think of no reason to stay home. Cecilia had a reason to fear her dreams. So up she got. Dressed she got. She splashed cold water on her face, but woke up no more. She ate nothing, and left the house alone.  
  
She said nothing to anyone at school and, as she suspected, no one noticed. Each instant, each moment only proved what she knew too well-that nothing she did mattered. And so she did nothing. Cecilia was a great believer in self-fulfilling prophecies.  
  
In class she sat still and did nothing. Cecilia couldn't even hear the teacher talk. But it did not matter. As she had failed before she would fail again and it wouldn't matter. No one would notice and no one would even mourn her passing. So she moved from class to class, not in a dream but in a horrible nightmare from which there was no waking. Cecilia knew all that, but it changed nothing. After all, no one would care.  
  
None of her teachers noticed that she did nothing. They had real problems to deal with. Maybe she should become a problem. Then at least she could get something-even Cecilia knew she needed something-even if she had no idea what it was. But if she couldn't eat, didn't that mean there was something? Cecilia was perfect, though, and perfect people didn't have problems, so obviously nothing was wrong. Right? Right?  
  
"Wrong."  
  
Cecilia said nothing. She knew that it was only her voices (the ones she could not, must not listen to) speaking out loud.  
  
"Cecilia, I asked you, 'what's wrong?'"  
  
She turned, looked, saw Simon, and turned away. He didn't matter. He didn't love her, he only pretended to and so what did it matter whether she hurt him or not? She hurt all the time-someone else could hurt for a change, even if it was someone she professed to like. And what was liking anyway? It didn't get Cecilia anything. Liking didn't get her cousin where her cousin was now.  
  
"Cecilia, answer me!"  
  
She did not.  
  
"I'm going to talk to someone about this."  
  
Cecilia didn't care. It meant Simon left her alone, and that was all she wanted now. Peace. If she could have nothing else, at least she couldn't be denied peace. Except if she couldn't get anything else, maybe she wouldn't get this either.  
  
"Mr. Avon, Cecilia's not responding too me."  
  
"Camden? Maybe she's just giving you the silent treatment. You two did have that very public falling out."  
  
"No, I think there's really something wrong."  
  
"Fine, fine," Mr. Avon slowing get up and moved over to Cecilia. "Cecilia?"  
  
She said nothing.  
  
"Cecilia, what's wrong?"  
  
She did not respond. Simon touched her, gently, but she didn't move. There was a time she would have yearned for that touch, but that time was long gone, before perfection and before Cecilia.  
  
"You're right, Camden, this is strange. Call the nurse."  
  
Simon did so, and Cecilia only blinked. Maybe by not moving she had caused a problem after all. Maybe she hoped she did. Cecilia didn't know anything anymore.  
  
The nurse came, and she still didn't move in the slightest. Long ago, she had thought giving up would be hard, and that was the only reason she kept going. Now, she knew it was all too easy, and wished she had done it long, long ago. The nurse put her in a wheel chair, and wheeled her out of the room. Some time later, she realized they were in the principal's office. She would have shrugged, but it took to much effort. After all, nothing mattered anymore.  
  
"Cecilia. What are you doing in my office? You've always been such a good child."  
  
She, as had become her new refrain, said nothing.  
  
"Say something, girl!"  
  
She still said nothing.  
  
"Stand up!"  
  
She stood; ready to do something, but then again, darkness fell. 


	3. Pocket Full of Posies

"There is a castle on a cloud/I like to go there in my sleep."  
  
Cecilia fled deep inside her mind. She wasn't sure what she was running to or what she was running from, but she ran anyway. She knew that she couldn't do what was out there anymore, and so fleeing was her only choice.  
  
She thought.  
  
"Aren't any floors for me to sweep/Not in my castle on a cloud."  
  
She knew that her body was lying on the floor in the principle's office, but she didn't care. That wasn't her, anyway. She was the one running, right now, deeper and deeper inside herself, as everything became more and more like a scene from a nightmare. A much worse nightmare than Cecilia had ever dreamed. "Stop!" someone called.  
  
"There is a room that's full of toys/There are a hundred boys and girls"  
  
Surprised, she did. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here. She was supposed to be all alone, forever and ever. That's why she fled. There were people out there, people like Simon who, she suddenly supposed, might want to help but didn't know how. But still. She didn't want to be out there, where she was Cecilia. Cecilia couldn't be Cecilia anymore.  
  
"Damn right you can't."  
  
"Nobody shouts or talks too loud/Not in my castle on a cloud."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"I'm Cecilia. I don't know who you are, you worthless piece of junk, but I'm Cecilia," the speaker somehow walked into the place where Cecilia was standing. And indeed, the stranger was Cecilia, but not Cecilia herself. The real Cecilia's head hurt. "I'm everything you couldn't be, everything you wanted to be." Cecilia looked, and it was true. She.she.she.did not speak.  
  
"Aren't you going to say something? Or are you just going to run away and cry like you do when you meet your cousin? Say something, damn you! Say something!" the stranger-Cecilia slapped Cecilia.  
  
"There is a lady, all in white/holds me and sings a lullaby"  
  
"I have nothing to say."  
  
"That's it?" stranger-Cecilia said, her voice dripping with scorn. "You've poured your heart into being ME, and failed and you have nothing to say?"  
  
"I have poured my heart into nothing," Cecilia's voice was weak, but it seemed that for the first time in her life she was speaking the truth. It scared her.  
  
"I'm better than you are."  
  
"I'm not arguing against that."  
  
"Don't you want to?"  
  
And Cecilia spoke the scariest truth of all, "No."  
  
"She's nice to see and she's soft to touch/she says 'Cosette, I love you very much'."  
  
Somehow, she did know the truth. "I don't want to be like you. I don't want to be me."  
  
"Well, we all knew that."  
  
"No," Cecilia said, speaking more to herself than to the stranger, "I don't want to be who my parents want me to be. I want to be someone else."  
  
"But I'm perfect!"  
  
"Yes. And everybody hates you," Cecilia said what she had known for a long time.  
  
"They're just jealous."  
  
"No," she said again. "They're right. If I want to be perfect than I have to be" she stopped, uncertain of the words she needed to find. And, thinking of Simon, she found them, "Good. I have to be good."  
  
"You aren't. I'm better at everything than you are," stranger-Cecilia said with a glow of triumph.  
  
"But no one will ever love you. If I want to be loved, for myself and not for what I've done, then I have to be a good person." Cecilia marveled at what she had so recently learned, and for the first time in years, even in the privacy of her own skull, she named herself "I".  
  
I faced myself, wondering by what blessing I had learned all this, to know how to face my demons that had preyed on my sanity for so long in the shape of myself.  
  
"I know a place where no one's lost/I know a place where no one cries."  
  
In that instant, when I named myself, Cecilia vanished. And slowly, I turned. Just because I now knew what I had to do doesn't mean I wanted to go back and do it. That didn't mean I wanted to live my life, that didn't mean I wanted to be Cecilia. That didn't mean it wouldn't hurt. And yet.and yet.somehow, something in me said it would all turn out all right. Maybe this was the God I'd been supposed to be believing in all along.  
  
I opened my eyes, and saw everyone staring down at me. I gathered my fragile resources and tried to think about what to do. And this time, I didn't think I'd fail.  
  
"Crying at all is not allowed/Not in my castle on a cloud." 


	4. Ring Around the Rosie

"What happened?" Simon finally asked, after several long seconds. "Are you going to be all right?"  
  
I gave myself a mental shake. 'Okay, so this is me. But what does that mean?'  
  
"Cecilia?" he brushed her hair back from her face, and looked concerned.  
  
"Yeah Simon?"  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"Everything or nothing, right now I'm not quite sure which," I was forced to admit.  
  
"Do you need help?" the principal asked. "You did just faint."  
  
I stood up, shaking a little, but all there for the first time, years, I guess. "I'm going to be fine."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"Just in case, I think I'll send you home for the rest of the day. How do you get to school?"  
  
"I drive."  
  
"Do you think you'll be okay driving?"  
  
"Mr. Baines, I'll go with her. I can walk back to school."  
  
"Simon, that's a very nice offer. So when you come back, see me and I'll give you a pass into class."  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Baines."  
  
As I left, I could hear Mr. Avon and Mr. Baines talking about me in low voices. "Do you think there's anything wrong at home?"  
  
"No, but you never know with teenagers. It's like dealing with a different species sometimes. And besides, there's nothing we can do about it unless she comes to us."  
  
"That's true. At least she seems to be all right now."  
  
"So Cecilia, what's really up?"  
  
"Simon, I don't really want to talk about it. It makes me sound crazy."  
  
"Well, you know if you need help then I'm here-"  
  
"No," I said with finality. "I don't know that. We have the most bizarre, craziest relationship I've ever seen or heard of. It isn't based on anything like it's supposed to be-half the time we don't even like each other. We talked to our parents about having sex? How weird was that? We just, God, Simon I don't know, but I don't know why we do this. I don't think I can do this anymore." I noticed that my head seemed to be nodding crazily on my neck, and I turned my will to holding it in place.  
  
"Cecilia, how can you say that? We're soul mates!"  
  
"Simon, how can we be soul mates? We're juniors in high school. If we were soul mates, don't you think we could have met some other way than me paying you to make my boyfriend jealous, damn; I had no idea what a head case I really was. Think about that Simon-what does it say about you. What does it say about me?"  
  
He seemed, for the first time, to think with something resembling a brain. "Man, I guess you're right. That is kind of strange, isn't it? And my family is weird too"  
  
He took my hand then. "But I don't want to lose your friendship?"  
  
"Do we even have friendship?"  
  
"You know, now that I think about it, I'm not even sure we have friendship," I was forced to admit, knowing that this might lose me my last friend.  
  
"I guess we don't. Huh."  
  
There was an uncomfortable pause as we got in my car, and I started driving. "Cecilia, I do want to still be friends with you. Start being friends with you-okay, that sentence is really bizarre. When you collapsed like that, God, I don't know. I just don't want you to completely exit my life. Even if we aren't dating."  
  
"I think I can handle that."  
  
"Does this mean you're going to date someone else now?"  
  
I thought for a minute, because I hadn't even considered doing that. "No it doesn't. I don't think I'm going to date anybody for a while. At least not until I leave Glen Oak."  
  
"But why not?"  
  
"I think it'll just be easier that way."  
  
"It can't just have been that that led you to faint."  
  
"No it wasn't. But Simon, I don't want to talk about it, and I certainly don't want to talk to your father about it."  
  
"Are you sure-I mean, I bet I could do something-"  
  
"No, sorry, I don't think you could."  
  
"But I feel like I should do something."  
  
I was a little surprised, more so than by his offer of friendship earlier. "This is enough, trust me."  
  
"Are you sure?" he asked.  
  
"Yes," I said. "Trust me."  
  
"Okay." We sat in silence for a while, and then I pulled into my driveway. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"  
  
"Simon, go back to school I'll be fine."  
  
And when I got back into my house, I knew that would be true. It'd probably hurt and it wouldn't be easy, but I could be fine. And being Cecilia could be fine. What a strange thought. 


End file.
